Two very powerful incentives were at work, two of the very strongest which have influence with mankind, love and a superstitious belief in an especial destiny of happiness, at the present moment on the very verge of realisation.
She believed profoundly in herself and in the suggestions of her own imagination.

So fixed and unalterable was that belief that it amounted to positive knowledge, so far as it constituted a motive of action.

In her strange youth wild dreams had possessed her, and some of them, often dreamed again, had become realities to her now.

Her powers were natural, those gifts which from time to time are seen in men and women, which are alternately scoffed at as impostures, or accepted as facts, but which are never understood either by their possessor or by those who witness the results.

She had from childhood the power to charm with eye and hand all living things, the fascination which takes hold of the consciousness through sight and touch and word, and lulls it to sleep.